• The Great American Nuclear Weapons Upgrade – Undark: “In the plains of western South Dakota, about 25 miles northeast of Mount Rushmore, the Ellsworth Air Force Base is preparing to receive the first fleet of B-21 nuclear bombers, replacing Cold War-era planes. Two other bases, Dyess in Texas and Whiteman in Missouri, will soon follow. By the 2030s, a total of five bases throughout the United States will host nuke-carrying bombers for the first time since the 1990s.”

• The Outer Limits of Optimism – Heather Parry: “In 2009, an 81-year-old man named Orville Richardson died, having been a member of Alcor with a view to preserving his head after his death; he had paid a lump sum lifetime membership fee. His brother and sister, who were his co-conservators, evidently did not agree with his plan for cryopreservation... they had him buried. Two months after his death, the relatives demanded a refund of the lifetime membership fee, which seems to have annoyed the company; Alcor subsequently sued to be allowed to exhume Richardson’s body, and though they lost initially they won on appeal. The Iowa Court of Appeals then ordered the Richardson family to dig up their late sibling, cut off his head and give it to Alcor, so they could freeze it.”

• Bluesky raises $15M series A – Tech Crunch: “The Series A round is led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat, and Kubernetes co-creator Joe Beda. The presence of a crypto-focused firm might alarm skeptics, especially since CEO Jay Graber used to be a software engineer for a crypto company, Zcash...”

Now that the newsletter is out of the way, finally catching up on email (inbox: 165) and RSS (653). I loathe that it has gotten so out of hand.

#radar #journal

A new edition of RESTRICTED FREQUENCY is finally upon us, and this is how it starts: “James Baldwin was accused by Richard Wright of being a tool of the CIA. This accusation did not emerge from a vacuum; 'I'm going to destroy you,' Baldwin once told him to his face at a Parisian cafe. He then proceeded to do just that by writing a series of not-so-veiled character assassinations in a variety of magazines.”

Extensive reading and quite a bit of research went into this one and writing it consumed me. Hence the lateness and off-schedule release. I didn't think it would be right to wait until next Saturday to release it, but then again I'm not entirely sure anyone cares. In any case, it's out now. This is where it lives online, and this is where signing up for future newsletters is possible.

#journal #newsletter

“This'll be our fourth move in ten years,” says Carrie Coon's character with disdain to Jude Law's in the film THE NEST, to which I found myself responding out loud: Honey, in the same timespan I moved seven times.

Thought maybe the film might've been from an era where people really didn't move around a whole lot, but double-checked and saw it came out in 2020.

No wonder I'm so damn traumatized (well, one of many reasons anyway).

#journal

Solo week of daddy duty has ended which means I must make it a point to make this week a week of much work as well as much socializing, as I am somewhat deprived of both. Have yet to make much of a plan for the latter, but I've got my work cut out for me on the former.

Branding and logo design tends to come easy to me, a consequence of cutting my teeth on that sort of thing throughout my twenties, but I am presently wrestling with a logo for something only because it's the type of thing that lends itself so easily to cliche, and you don't want a terribly cliche logo, as that defies the chief objective of branding to begin with.

Hoping to wrap that up today and still have time to squeeze in some TSG despite it already being close to 2:00 pm.

Cloudy with bouts of rain today. Hot and humid as fuck though. Inbox 115, RSS 605.

#journal

These days I start my morning at around 7am by reading a passage or two from Yevgeny Zamyatin's WE and Mason Currey's DAILY RITUALS along with my first Americano. Then breakfast: scrambled eggs and homemade pita followed by a small bowl of granola and fresh fruit along with my second Americano.

After a bit of tidying up in the kitchen and a scolding hot shower, I get to work, typically by 9am: Mostly the very last installment of THE SOLAR GRID right now along with whatever work-for-hire I have on my plate: presently a branding gig and an illustration thing. I break for exercise around 1:00pm. Protein shake at 2:00, which I enjoy with some more light reading. Back to work by 2:30 for a final hour or two before I start cooking dinner, which if I'm low on supplies can sometimes be preceded by a quick grocery run. I'm on solo daddy duty for a good stretch which takes up most of my evenings. Not sure if I'll have enough time to squeeze in the next newsletter, but I'll try.

#journal

Woke up today comforted by the knowledge that I will no longer be pestered by rich politicians to give them my money.

I have been on a roll of not-so-great reads lately for some reason, a couple of which I reviewed:

• THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus

• THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND by Cesar Aira

George Bataille's STORY OF THE EYE and Nathanael West's MISS LONELYHEARTS/THE DAY OF THE LOCUST are a couple others, yet to be reviewed. I'm annoyed at this bad book spell I seem to have fallen under, and am wondering how these books ever landed in my TBR pile to begin with. Moving onto WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin and keeping my fingers crossed that this'll be the one to break the spell.

#journal #reads

Finally scheduled the new newsletter. This one took a lot out of me.

It goes out in a few hours. Sign up, as always, is at Ganzeer.com/Newsletter

Inbox 237, RSS 438. Terrible.

#Journal

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” said the Earth followed by a sinister laugh.

She was bruised and visibly ill, but still stood tall. She wasn't proud of this, not really. She'd held back doing anything like it for a long time, but she was at her wit's end and found no other way.

She shook her head and retreated into the embrace of the universe, muttering no more than two words: “Puny humans.”

(Uncredited photo from Valencia following unprecedented floods.)

#journal #radar

• Space Exploration Logo Archive

• The Philip K. Dick Society Pamphlets

• On Charles Dickens' Unfinished Murder Mystery – “Since shortly after Dickens’s death in 1870, writers (and musical theater playwrights) have attempted to pick up where he left off, trying to solve the novel’s central murder themselves and write an acceptable second half and ending. The strangest, though, was published in 1873, by an American printer named Thomas Power James. He claimed that the spirit of Charles Dickens had appeared to him and dictated the rest of the novel through him, and published a full version of the novel. Arthur Conan Doyle, noted spiritualist, found credence in this, and endorsed this “ghostwritten” continuation, saying that Dickens’s style remained consistent throughout the story. This edition endured in America far longer than it should have.”

• Lily Allen says she earns more money from selling feet pictures than Spotify streams – “Imagine being an artist and having nearly 8 million monthly listeners on spotify but earning more money from having 1000 people subscribe to pictures of your feet. don’t hate the player, hate the game”.

Inbox 192, RSS 310. Had intended on firing up the newsletter this weekend, but a migraine got the better of me yesterday.

#radar #journal

“I gently sucked Simone's breast while waiting for the soft-boiled eggs, and she ran her fingers through my hair. Her mother was the one who brought us the eggs, but I didn't even turn around, I assumed it was a maid, and I kept on sucking the breast contentedly. Nor was I ultimately disturbed when I recognized the voice, but since she remained and I couldn't pass up even one instant of my pleasure, I thought of pulling down my pants as for a call of nature, not ostentatiously, but merely hoping she would leave and delighted at going beyond all limits.”

I knew Georges Bataille's STORY OF THE EYE was supposed to be “transgressive”, but this is just trash. I cannot for the life of me understand what the appeal was to Sontag or Sartre, the appeal that drew me to look into the book to begin with. It is, thus far, not even sexy.

“Simone settled on the toilet, and we each ate one of the hot eggs with salt. With the three that were left, I softly caressed her body, gliding them between her buttocks and thighs, then I slowly dropped them in the water one by one. Finally, after viewing them for a while, immersed, white, and still hot (this was the first time she was seeing them peeled, that is naked, drowned under her beautiful cunt), Simone continued the immersion with a plopping noise akin to that of soft-boiled eggs.”

Odd fixation with eggs and urine, the latter of course I know to be a fetish but one I never could quite understand. None of the characters' actions seem to make any sense to me, they're all just stupid in the same way modern porn actors typically are. Most reviews of this loathsome pamphlet of poorly conceived depravity seem to refer to it as “thought-provoking”. I, thus far, cannot see why. It's short enough that I'll carry on with it anyway, but I have a feeling I'll long for the time wasted on it nonetheless, no matter how little.

I've been awaking past midnight for the past few nights now, tummy growling with want. And every night I succumb to its needs by prepping a little snack. Terrible new habit.

#reads #journal